Entries by Adam Strom

Migration History in Tree Rings

By Zhaoyang Liu Migration in Tree Rings Migration is a fluid process; it reflects the progress of life while also being integral to it. Two Northeastern University professors, Pedro M. Cruz and John Wihbey, created a digital image depicting two-hundred years of immigration to the United States, represented as the rings of a tree. The […]

Alone at Angel Island

Overview: This audio story from PRI is a great resource for using in lesson plans for teaching about young Chinese immigrants to Angel Island By Zhaoyang Liu Angel Island Immigration Center, oftentimes referred to as the “Ellis Island of the West”, operated from January 21, 1910 to November 5, 1940. Unlike Ellis Island, the immigration […]

Anglicized Portuguese Names

By Zhaoyang Liu Many different ethnic groups chose to Anglicize their names upon arriving in the United States or other English speaking countries. There were many reasons behind this practice, such as making their names easier for English speakers to pronounce or avoiding discrimination and prejudice. Some viewed the Anglicization of their names as a […]

Indian-Americans in Media

By Zhaoyang Liu The children of Indian immigrants, who in recent years have become more prominent in entertainment, are finding new ways to reconcile the culture of their parents with the society that they grew up in. In the past, Indian-Americans have struggled to find representation in film and television, with only a few examples […]

Classroom Resource: The Bracero Program and Guest Workers

by Zhaoyang Liu N.B. – This resource includes quotations with racist anti-Mexican language. Guest workers, in the most basic sense, are foreigners who are temporarily permitted to live in a host country under contracts of manual labor. The term itself is often linked to its German counterpart, Gastarbeiter, which described the Turks that West Germany […]

Your stories are our history.

By Kathryn Lloyd, Director of Programs at the Tenement Museum “It wasn’t until he pulled something out of a display cabinet, did we really begin to have a conversation.” These words, written by Kaipo Iseda, accompany a photograph of an aluminum drinking cup, scratched with the name “Yasushi” and an identification number. This cup sat […]

The Struggles and Successes of a Model Minority

By Zhaoyang Liu While Asians are now seen as one the most successful groups of immigrants in America, this was not always the case. Asian immigrants in the United States have experienced discrimination on multiple different occasions. It is important to remember their history in order to fully understand how they factor into the dynamic […]

Inside and Outside a Tent Camp for Child Migrants

What is life like for child migrants who are confined to what the U.S. government refers to as a child shelter? Critics of the administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy use much stronger language. This Vice News report, focusing on the Tornillo tent camp during late June 2018, tries to find out. The report also explores the legal controversies, and politics, […]